The Brethren
an excerpt

DARK. NOT MERE DARKNESS. A darkness so deep it was felt in the bones. A darkness that penetrated the marrow and sent cold chills up the spine. That was the kind of darkness she felt. She crept along the wall, feeling her way forward with trembling hands. How long had she been down here? You lost track of time in this devilish black. She knew she could not have been down here for more than ten minutes, but a cold sweat trickled down her brow as each second passed by. Time was of the essence. She could not afford to waste it, and she felt like she was letting it slip through her fingers because of her own incompetence. Time could be wasted if it was unavoidable or if it was caused by someone else. But it could not be wasted on account of her. She would not fail this mission. Far too much was at stake for her to blow it.

Her hand touched something cool. A door. Good. She breathed a shuddering sigh of relief, and her hand grappled for the handle. It was locked. The sweat broke out again and she felt cold. Was she trapped? Was there no way out? There had to be a way out! She had gotten in here, hadn’t she? She could get out the same way she got in. But that was the problem. She didn’t know how she had entered this wormhole in space, this glitch in time. Everything had been going smoothly until everything crashed apart. Her mind had functioned logically until her thought pattern splintered apart. In this darkness.

“Kelly! Kelly, answer me!” Her radio hissed at her side and she snatched it up.

“This is Caviar. What’s happening?” She knew something was wrong, terribly wrong, if her teammate had resorted to calling her by her first name instead of her call sign. Something had gone wrong.

“The mission’s a fluke!” the radio cracked. “Get out of there!”

“What?” She couldn’t tell which of her teammates was talking to her. “Identify yourself. Over.”

“Bravo, Bravo One-One-One,” he answered back.

“Bravo, where are you?” she asked.

The radio hissed and crackled once. His voice came through intermittently, but not well enough for her to make out any of his words. Then it ended with a long hiss of static. She listened for a full three minutes before turning off her receiver.